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Senate Report Confirms Bush Role in Torture

by Erik Larson | December 13, 2008 at 05:31 pm

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A new report by the Senate Armed Services Committee concludes "senior US officials" sought how to ways to legally torture, to redefine the law and torture, and authorized use of practices on detainees. The Bush Administration has tried to blame abuse of detainees on "a few bad apples", but this report, which at least 4 Republicans voted to endorse, and none voted against, the responsibility goes much higher. Much of the report is classified. The World Socialist Web Site provides this report with a .pdf link to the report:

Senate torture report confirms Bush, top officials guilty of war crimesBy Bill Van Auken
13 December 2008
A report issued Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee has provided official and bipartisan confirmation that the infamous acts of torture carried out by US personnel at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were planned, ordered and orchestrated by the highest-ranking officials in the US government. Based on the Senate's own conclusions, those named in the document, including President George W. Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, are guilty of war crimes.

The key findings of the Senate panel's report on "Treatment of Detainees in US Custody" [PDF] are summed up in the introduction to its 29-page executive summary:

"The abuse of detainees in US custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples' acting on their own. The fact is that senior US officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

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Amy Judd

at 17:45 on December 13th, 2008

I can't say I'm surprised by this announcement, but it's awful that a) they tried to cover it up so badly and b) things like this still happen in a suposedly civilized western government.

Erik Larson

at 18:08 on December 13th, 2008

From the conclusions it seems this is just a "limited hangout"; if there's stuff in the report that could hang Bush, i missed it- still, it seems there's enough here to warrant full criminal investigations, if Obama has the stomach, which he's indicated he doesn't.

Senate Armed Services Committee Conclusions
Conclusion 1: On February 7, 2002, President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. Following the President’s determination, techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and stress positions, used in SERE training to simulate tactics used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions, were authorized for use in interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.

Conclusion 2: Members of the President’s Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. National Security Council Principals reviewed the CIA’s interrogation program during that period.

TomAikins

at 18:21 on December 13th, 2008

All of the criminals in this administration are almost certain to escape any culpability for their crimes over the last eight years. Politics is a club and once you're in the club even partisanship take a back seat. And even when the rare conviction occurs the transgressor is almost always pardoned, e.g., Scooter Libby by Bush, Poindexter by Reagan, Nixon by Ford and many others. Even convicted felons -- Ted Stevens, for example -- are not by law disqualified from serving in the Senate. If you're a convicted felon you can't vote but you can be a Senator. Figuer that one out. Basically, American politics stinks and even The One will almost certainly abide by the rules and ignore the transgressions of his predecessors for the sake of "national unity."

Erik Larson

at 17:09 on December 14th, 2008

Tom's right, the Establishment is rotten and true to form, Obama is already signaling he's looking "forward" and "change" doesn't mean accountability for really, really big, treasonous stuff. However, in the Network Age, it's getting harder and harder to hide crimes and pretend. We'll see what the People do, when everything is made transparent.

djermano

at 04:02 on December 26th, 2008

Tom it is called Organized Crime, not government, and since Organized Crime has its hooks in the US they are suffering the effects. The economy is tanked, and they think more borrowed money is going to fix it. I got news for them it won't happen. People have wised up. They don't want to support the US or the US stock Market because they know in doing so...it really supports terrorism. Terrorists disguised can use the Stock Market to make millions, and they cheat like hell. The Mortgage fiasco is case in point. People are not going to take any more bubbles here, or Enron's again. The shit hit the fan and it hit the proverbial Brick Wall. You have to be a Moron to trust the US again....now even given the Madoff Scandal who screwed another 50 billion out of people. Building 7 hush up and a muitlitude of other questions they refuse to answer is not going away any time soon. Expect Depression, expect guns pointed at Obama's if he tries to do the right thing..expect the American tradition of more violence in the US. It will spur more and more violence, until finally answers are had. The point is the US is burned, done, finished...until they who did the bad, come forward and honor the truth. It has begun, with Cheneys admission, and he has a lot more talking to go yet. So come on Dick start talking...It's not you who is hurting at the moment; it is the millions of Americans who are going down financially...sort of payback to you for those thousands of innocent Iraqi People you wiped out with US bombs.

Rev. Jermano